the indictment is an exercise in omission. No mention of the Awan group’s theft of information from Congress. Not a hint about the astronomical sums the family was paid, much of it for no-show “work.” Not a word about Wasserman Schultz’s keeping Awan on the payroll for six months during which (a) he was known to be under investigation, (b) his wife was known to have fled to Pakistan, and (c) he was not credentialed to do the IT work for which he had been hired. Nothing about Wasserman Schultz’s energetic efforts to prevent investigators from examining Awan’s laptop. A likely currency-transportation offense against Alvi goes uncharged. And, as for the offenses that are charged, prosecutors plead them in a manner that avoids any reference to what should be their best evidence.

As with the IRS, where the hell is Jeff Sessions? He didn’t recuse himself from this. My confidence in our justice system continues to plummet.

I accidentally started a Twitter conversation with Sandy Mazza as a result of this nice piece on markets being enabled by lower-cost launch, including space burial. I noted to her that it made no sense for the California Department of Public Health to be regulating it, and then mentioned that they shouldn’t have anything to do with cryonics, either. In the course of the discussion, I dug up an old piece I wrote for Cryonics Magazine back in 1990 (ctrl-F “Simberg” to find it). Given that things are finally looking promising for reducing cost of access to space in general, and likely the moon as well, I decided I’d resurrect it here. Note that I’ve been talking about the need for markets to drive down launch costs for three decades. Note also that it’s somewhat dated, in terms of its discussion of the NASP and American Rocket.

I’ve been working on a document for a client, and it’s laid out in book format. Each chapter has its own page style (to maintain chapter title in headers) and there are several other styles as well. I’ve been printing it double sided, two pages per side. Today, when I tried to print it, instead of US Letter (which is what I set up all of the styles to be in) it insists on printing in a #8 Monarch Envelope format, which totally screws things up. But there’s no way to change it; the format is greyed out. The default for the printer is US Letter, the page styles are US Letter, but for some reason Office has decided that it’s only going to allow me to print it as an envelope, in this file, and this file only. I can’t find anything in either the Help for the software or by Googling anyone else who has had a problem like this. Is there a Libre Office doctor in the house?